Welcome to Arts Medicine for Healing & Resilience! We, as people of many ages, gender, ethnicity, faith, and nationality, and the world as a whole, are in need of healing. We are imbued with a creative power that needs to be honored for its healing capacities. Creativity is our birthright, but often gets pushed aside and/or trampled on when we have been abused, neglected and/or ignored. Fortunately, that inner voice of inspiration does not vanish, and waits upon our return. The "art of living" is to experience a life of growth and thriving beyond just surviving. Opening up to expressive yearning and appreciation are inner resources that help heal our embattled bodies and wounded spirits. Imagine the creative and the rational/analytic as threads woven strongly together, no longer isolated and fragile, but together bound as one empowering heart, body and mind. The goal of Arts Medicine for Healing & Resilience is totransform trauma into a life lived now in abundance, creativity and gratitude. "Wholeness" which is health needs to be experienced and shared and inspired within ourselves and others. Let us join together in this important task!

Creativity is a healing force impacting the whole of who we are. From ancient myth to research science, it is recognized that making our own art as well as experiencing the art of others can help promote health and healing. Change in neural connections and brain chemistry in addition to enhancing a felt sense of connection to self and others are some of the many beneficial outcomes of Arts Medicine interventions.

Arts Medicine for Healing & Resilience aims to inspire and empower adults and children to recover from trauma through the power of their creativity. By envisioning the self as much more than one's trauma, latent energies are released allowing the unique self in all its many dimensions to flourish. Creating a safe place for such unfoldment is essential. The personal courage of releasing and transforming experience through creative expression is witnessed and honored.

Art encompasses all of humanity's suffering and joy. Music, dance, poetry, painting, drama, and other art forms need to be better understood as healing medicines utilizing the powers of cognition, imagination, movement, and physical sensation to positively impact our physical and emotional health. What can not be said or shared in words alone finds strength, release, and community in creative arts expression.

Art carries meaning to see, hear, feel, touch and to make part of ourselves. The act of creating can empower and motivate. Seeing ourselves as "works of art in process" can be inspiring. Poetry, from the Greek, poesis, means "to create." The winged horse, Pegasus, is the symbol of poetry and our innate capacity to transform. The myth tells us that wherever Pegasus would strike his hoof, a wellspring of healing waters appeared. Myths are not mere make believe. They transmit deep meaning which helps us even now.Arts Medicine for Healing & Resiliencesupports utilizing untapped creative resources of body, mind and spirit to empower and transform us into a state of well-being. To watch an informative video of Dr. Kaufman presenting on "Trauma, Creativity and Healing" at The New School, please click below.